Although it still shows a lack of separation of church/state in Iraq, this development does further isolate Mookie, who’s physical presence in Iran does not help his cause. Afterall, he’s the guy who’s been causing much of the Shiite trouble while Sistani has been a more moderate voice.

However, Sistani’s go-slow approach to the much needed legislation that would serve to unify Iraqis still bothers me.

All things considered, if Iraqi factions and religious groups are motivated by their national identity, this is no doubt a good omen for future progress.

I put more stock in tidbits like this from the ny slimes times; dead seconds; continueing
red on red, and the ever popular Kano lesbians on the lam.

“SCIRI splits” still might be an interesting turn in the tide though.

Or, of course, it could all be a big ruse concocted by Iran to make its puppet look a bit less wooden and more like a real boy, possibly to give it more leverage with the U.S., even while it continues to pull the strings.

That would be my view. They want a caliphate. Don’t believe anything else.

sisatani is an idiot..I went to his site and all he talks about is what one must do in muslimhood…he conveniently leaves out waht one must do if one doesn’t follow that.

Nice try sistani, I don’t fall for your bullshit.

Highrise on May 13, 2007 at 3:51 AM

Everybody check out http://www.sistani.org. Real eye-opener.

Nice try sistani, I don’t fall for your bullshit.

Failing to install a secular Constitution doomed the entire enterprise.

Allowing our soldiers to die doing what Iraqis, by now, should be doing is military folly.

Instead of patrols riding around looing to be IED’d, the regiongs should be carpetbombed if any of our troops are attacked there.

Poosyfooting in wartime is bad policy.

To paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt:

Either go in hard, or expect to limp away.

P.S. A semantic change is a change in meaning. A change in how something is stated without changing the meaning is a syntactic change.

Since we’re splitting hairs, this does involve syntax, but that’s not what’s significant here. Syntax isn’t concerned with the meanings at all, just with the formal mechanics of the words and letters. That dropping “Revolutionary” from the group’s title entails shortening it by 13 letters would be an example of a syntactic observation about SCIRI’s name change. It’s true, but it’s not significant.

If word (or phrase) A refers to (or denotes) something, and it’s being replaced with word (or phrase) B to refer to (or denote) the same thing, there are indeed syntactic differences being created. But the significant development is that word (or phrase) B has gained a new referent (or denotation). That’s a semantic change involving B.

They’ve dropped a word from their name, but I don’t think it changes their main goals at all.

Traditionally through history, the center of Shiite culture has been in Iraq.
crosspatch on May 12, 2007 at 10:51 PM

Clausewitz, center of gravity. There’s so much talk of oil and things like that, but the Fertile Crescent is a much more fundamental hub than just that.

This is positioning for an anticipated US pullout.

No one wants to be the next most foreign element in Iraq after the Brits and US are gone.

John on May 12, 2007 at 9:36 PM

I hope we’re out of there. My cousin’s there for the third time (15 months this time) and my buddy’s heading over there in the fall with a SEAL det. I’d rather they not die for a bunch of Arabs that want nothing else than to kill one another and their liberators.

Is it just that the Muslim cult is so obsessed with submission that they simply cannot throw off the yolks of tyranny as the West did centuries ago?

Which makes this a rather atomic bombshell:

Or just more smoke and mirrors, me thinks?

There is about to be a full blown struggle for control of Najaf. If Najaf ends up being under the control of the Iranian ayatollahs, we lose. If Najaf ends up being under the control of Sistani, we (and the rest of the world) wins.

Placing Sistani as their head spiritual leader is an end run around Sadr who is not an Ayatollah. The Iranians will now need to bring Sistani under their control or eliminate him and make sure the replacement Ayatollah is subordinate to the Iranian Ayatollah.

Overall, this is GREAT NEWS.

P.S. A semantic change is a change in meaning. A change in how something is stated without changing the meaning is a syntactic change.

No one wants to be the next most foreign element in Iraq after the Brits and US are gone.

Hopefully if this is true it could mean a larger Iraq (relationally speaking) and not a larger Iran and all the implications that would put on the table.

No telling for sure, but these Iraqi Kremlinology posts sure are fun. (For me, not for you.)

Ya, but the future analysis of Islamic brigades vis-à-vis political factionalism is certain to be much less academic.
I’d be happy to be wrong about that.

So we wait……….

Exactly. It won’t take long to learn the truth. Sistani and his followers will let the whole world know the first time they refuse “advice.”